


Cable Cars Climb Halfway to the Stars

by kyrieanne



Series: Trains Series [4]
Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-08 16:48:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrieanne/pseuds/kyrieanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lizzie has a month to write her thesis, graduate, and launch her company. She's got this. What she does not expect is William Darcy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cable Cars Climb Halfway to the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fourth part of the 'Trains' series (THE TRUTH ABOUT TRAINS, MIDNIGHT TRAIN, & THE HEART LINE). A thousand beta accolades go to iloveyouandilikeyou, who provided the best feelings feedback anyone could ask for. Comments are golden! They make the world go around, so let me know what you think!

**CABLE CARS CLIMB HALFWAY TO THE STARS**  
  
“The loveliness of Paris seems somehow sadly gay   
The glory that was Rome is of another day   
I’ve been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan   
I’m going home to my city by the Bay.”  
  
 _I’ve Left My Heart in San Francisco_  
  
***

In the morning, they take the train back. At the Longbourne station Darcy insists on carrying her bag to the platform.

“I’ll have the contracts faxed to your father’s office when I get back,” he says.

“Thank you,” Lizzie tucks her hair behind ears, “I should get my own fax machine. And business cards. And a website,” she exhales. “Wow, I have a lot to do.”

“One step at a time, Lizzie.”

There he goes saying her name in that way again.

“Thank you,” she stammers.

“For what?”

“For taking a chance on me,” she says, “I know I haven’t made the most professional impression. It’s just everything has been happening so fast with Lydia and then Jane and I’m graduating in five weeks. Five.” She laughs a little when she hears herself say it.

“You’ll figure it out.”

“I will,” she says, “but thank you for taking a chance on me while I do.”

He smiles and leans toward her, “I don’t take chances. You’re a sure thing.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He shrugs, “I always have a plan.”

She wants to ask him what that means. Where does she factor into William Darcy’s plans? But the intercom announces the train is leaving and it reminds her he has a train to catch. A train to take him back to San Francisco and a very busy, important life.

“We’re still on for that Skype meeting on Thursday?” She grabs the handle of her suitcase, “I can’t wait to meet the rest of the team.”

“Yes. I’ll have Reynolds send you an invitation.”

“Well, see you then,” she points behind him, “It’ll leave without you if you don’t hurry.”

“Oh, yes. Of course.”

“Good bye, then.”

She leaves him standing on the platform. She forces herself not to turn around and watch him board the train. For just a few minutes, Lizzie needs to imagine what it would have meant if he had bought that company for her. If he hadn’t met her at the station with a business proposal, but if she’d actually made it to San Francisco. She would have asked him  _why_  and he would suggest they get coffee and in the corner of some cafe they would have sat at a table, their knees skimming beneath the top, and leaned into one another. He would have said  _yes_ and she would have said  _me too_  and there would have been no midnight train.

But it didn’t happen that way. Instead, they have a partnership and plans and a friendship.

“It is good,” she tells herself as her dad’s station wagon pulls into the parking lot.

 _It is good_ ,  _right?_

***

When Lizzie gets home Lydia is in the driveway.

“I was going to borrow your car,” she holds up the keys, “Mary and I are going to Carter’s.”

“That’s fine.”

“You’re not going anywhere?”

“No. I’m not.”

There is a pain in her chest when she says it. It feels so final and complete.

Lydia grins, “Great. See you later.”

And then Lydia is gone and Lizzie trudges up to her bedroom-turned-meditation studio with her rolling suitcase hitting every step with a  _bang, bang, bang._

“Elizabeth, stop that racket!” Her mother yells from Jane’s-former-bedroom-turned-crafting-nook, “You just messed up my bedazzling.”

Lizzie slams her bedroom door shut and leaves the suitcase by the door. It tips over awkwardly against the bookshelf where her books used to live. Now the shelves are filled with candles and bonsai trees. Lizzie curls up on her bed, kicking the covers until they fall onto the floor, and stares at the shelf.

Suddenly, she is filled with hate for the shelf. She hates that it is still there in the spot she wrestled it into years ago. It still stands there, but the contents have changed. Her books are gone. Her pictures and mementos and her whole life has been packed away. She hates how everything around her has changed, but for her everything is the same-but-less. The shelf is there, but it isn’t her’s anymore. Her room has a bed, but nothing in it that matters to her. Her sisters and Charlotte are gone, but still her parents putter around the house. The sounds of their movements float up through the floor, her dad with his trains and her mother humming along to Celine Dion’s greatest hits. And here Lizzie lies while the world has gone on without her.

She feels utterly and completely pathetic.

***

When Darcy finally does get home Mrs. Trusk is just leaving the apartment.

“Where is Lizzie?” Her back is to him. She organizes the stacks of paper spread out over the dining room table.

Darcy drops his garment bag onto the couch and tugs his tie loose, “I returned her to Longbourne where she belongs.”

“Then why are you here?”

“You have been spending too much time with Gigi,” Darcy stands next to her along the dining table. He touches the piles of paper, ignoring the way the older woman looks at him. “When are you going to let me send this to my friend at Harper’s?”

“Don’t try to distract me.” Mrs. Trusk shoulders him out of the way, “My manuscript will be done when it is done.”

“You said that when Gigi graduated from high school,” Darcy says. He goes to the fridge and takes out the expertly wrapped meal she left for him.

Mrs. Trusk shoves the papers into a canvas tote bag,“You said you would start attending to your own  life when she graduated from college. Go on a date. Take a vacation. Live a little.” She punctuates each sentence with another stack of papers dropping into her bag.

“I didn’t mean to upset you.” Darcy puts the meal in the microwave.

“That girl is good for you.”

“I know.”

“You’ve got too many people who answer to you. She doesn’t.”

“I know.”

“You need someone who will be your equal.”

“I know.”

She turns around, “You know?”

“I do.”

He chooses to ignore the grin blossoming on the older woman’s face, “You do!” She raises a hand to her lips and there is water in the corners of her eyes. “You do,” she whispers, “you get it.”

“I feel like I should be insulted you thought I didn’t.”

“Gigi and I have wondered for years if you’d ever get it. Fitz too.”

“I don’t understand people’s preoccupation with my personal life.”

“That’s because you didn’t have one.”

The microwave beeps and Darcy retrieves his meal. It is chicken Alfredo. It is one of his comfort foods and Mrs. Trusk knows so. She uses his mother’s recipe and it never fails to work. She shoulders her canvas tote and slides a beer across the counter toward him. He takes a sip and looks at Mrs. Trusk.

It’s funny, he thinks, in all the years since his parents died and she came to care for Gigi he’s never thought to call her by her first name. She is one of the only people who has remained an adult to him.

“I have lived the life I wanted,” he says.

“You have lived the life required of you.”

“And I’m proud of it,” he snaps. He forces himself to exhale and shrugs, “I am proud of what I’ve done with Gigi and with Pemberley Digital.”

He doesn’t mean to sound frustrated and he knows she knows that. It’s hard to know your faults, but feel like they were the inevitable conclusion to circumstance. It’s hard not to grow sensitive to criticism. When he looks back on that terrible day at Collins & Collins he thinks that is what happened. Lizzie’s censure sounded too much like his own internal monologue.

“But Gigi is grown up now. She’s a young, capable woman.”

“Yes,” he swallows, “I am learning that.”

“I saw those Domino videos,” Mrs. Trusk adjusts the bag on her shoulder, “After you called me in the middle of the night to hurry down to get the beach house ready I texted your sister. She confessed all of it:  the matchmaking on her part, the video diaries, and why you and Fitz disappeared last month. I saw what you and her did for that family.”

“It was the right thing to do. The honorable thing.”

“Yes,” she says, “but for Gigi it was also brave. Brave for her to face that man. You need to see that.”

“I do,” Darcy pauses, “I am trying.”

“Is that why you’re letting her go to Sanditon? Put off grad school,” she cocks her head.

“I’m trying to not  _let_ her do anything, but rather respect her choices as her choices.”

“And Lizzie Bennet?”

“What about her?”

“I have a plan,” he sighs. He hates how he keeps having to say that, both to himself and the people around him.

Mrs. Trusk shrugs and moves toward the front door, “You and I can make a lot of plans, William. The trick is not forgetting to live our lives at the same time.”

***

Charlotte waves a chopstick in the air, “So let me get this straight - you’re in love with William Darcy? The man who bought a company to save your sister, took a train to propose you partner with him on his company’s brand new, exciting application, and then swooped you away to his house on the coast for a weekend of nerdy shoptalk and walks on the beach.”

“There was no swooping,” Lizzie says from one end of the couch, “he did not swoop.”

Charlotte rolls her eyes, “You walked along the beach barefoot!”

“We’re friends.”

“You and I are friends and we have never walked along the beach barefoot.”

“But I have fake drunk dialed you in the middle of several hideously bad dates in order to get you out of them.”

“Fair point.”

Lizzie hides her face in the back couch cushion, “What am I going to do?”

“Do?” Charlotte says through a mouthful of Chinese food, “Do? You’re going to sign the contract, form your own company, and kick ass. That’s what you’re going to do.”

“Yeah, I know, but what about the rest?”

“What rest?”

“I’m living at home. I have a business plan and no investors. I had to give William Darcy my  _dad’s_ fax number because I don’t have one!” Lizzie moans, “Figuring out the Darcy question was supposed to help me figure out the what’s-next-for-Lizzie question, but I don’t feel like I’ve got anything figured out.”

“Lizzie, when are you going to realize that half of being an adult is making it up as you go?”

Lizzie just blinks at her and Charlotte rolls her eyes.

“Do you think I ever feel like I know what I’m doing at Collins & Collins? I worry I’ll never actually get to make films like I wanted and I seriously worry about my total lack of a love life because I’m working all the time. The last man to compliment me was Ricky Collins.”

“Charlotte, some guy is going to be so lucky to have you some day. You’re beautiful.”

“Lizzie, I don’t have self-esteem problems,” Charlotte smiles, “I’m telling you you’re not the only one without a plan. Welcome to adulthood.”

Lizzie looks around her parent’s den at the movie credits rolling on the television, the remnants of Chinese takeout spread out on the coffee table, and Lydia curled up, snoring softly, in the chair in the corner.

“This is it?”

Charlotte smiles, “This is it.”

Lizzie sighs and Charlotte reaches for the remote to turn off the television. Lizzie thinks about how many nights they’ve sat and done this same thing. It all feels so ordinary. Lizzie always imagined whatever came after school would feel grand and important. She never thought it would be like this.

“Hey Char,” Lizzie says.

“Yeah?”

“You are a beautiful tropical fish full of wisdom, just so you know.”

Her best friend smiles, “I will always be your Ann Perkins.”

***

Slowly, Lizzie climbs out of her fog. Occasionally her heart still jumps into her throat when Darcy sends her an email. But she gets used to the fact that her future is going to remain a question mark. She has exactly a month until she turns her thesis in and graduate. Four weeks. Thirty days. 720 hours. 43, 200 minutes. Not that she is counting or anything.

  
And William Darcy only takes up a small portion of those moments. Lizzie sets small goals for each day:  finish her write-up of Pemberley, bounce sketches for her company website off Charlotte, and eat as much Fro-Yo with Lydia as she can stand. Each time she checks one off she reminds herself of the bigger picture. It’s a fuzzy picture, but it looks something like moving out of her parents’ house, working on Domino, and launching her own original, new content. While that might seem specific, it doesn’t to Lizzie. Slowly the  _what_  is coalescing, but the  _how_  is still a mystery.

Punctuating the mundane work of living out her dreams is an unexpected friendship with William Darcy.

***

 

 

***

 

 

***

 

 

***

 

 

***

It is a bunch of stray nothings, really. It’s not every day. They never talk about sisters or feelings. They never bring up the past year. Instead, it is a article forwarded or random idea for Domino. It is  _Hey I thought of you_ and  _What do you think of this?_ It is an inquiry into her thesis and opinion about something he is dealing with at work. It is the bits of their day that don’t fit anywhere else.

Lizzie finds herself re-watching her videos from Pemberley and she spots it on the third re-watch. She catches the moment when she began to see William Darcy differently. It was when he said  _verisimilitude_. Lizzie can read the look on her face. She freeze frames it. It is confusion. It is enthrallment. Long ago, Lizzie accepted the way people’s eyes glaze over during one of her nerdy rants. Jane just smiles. Lydia rolls her eyes. Their mother gave up years ago. Charlotte is the closest that Lizzie has to a peer in this regard. But there it is in high definition:  William Darcy as her equal, meeting her point for point, a partner in this weird digital game she has undertaken.   
  
So the bunch of stray nothings don’t feel like nothings. They are personal. They mean something to Lizzie. When Darcy stood on that train platform and proposed they become partners, she tells herself, he’d really meant it. It is a dangerous memory to recall. When she does it feels like a flower is unfurling in her chest. It is a memory that dares her to hope.  
  
So it takes a level of self-control Lizzie won’t admit to needing to not pour hours and hours into Domino. She wants Darcy to be impressed, but the truth is she only has so many hours in the day and the Domino gig really is only supposed to be part-time. Lizzie has her thesis and her own company to start. She forces herself to clock her hours and when they are well past twenty for that week she makes herself step away. She forces herself to be practical and smart. She tells herself she’s got the feelings in check.

But then she gets her business cards in the mail with  _Three Sisters Studio_  embossed on the back with the logo that Lydia, of all people, designed. Lizzie is so excited to get them that she snaps a picture and sends it to Darcy before she can think if it is smart.

He texts back immediately with a smiley face emoticon. Lizzie won’t lie, her heart flutters a bit at the idea that she got Darcy to use an emoticon.  
  
  
  
Then he asks her if she’s read the latest  _New Yorker_  and they spend a whole afternoon texting back and forth about the feature article. On a whim, she asks his opinion on television. He doesn’t, as a rule, watch it, and to Lizzie this is a travesty. She pontificates about the brillance of Joss Whedon for so long that her thumbs go numb typing it all out. She is in the middle of arguing that Buffy is a feminist icon when her phone rings. She drops it and is startled when William Darcy’s name appears on her screen. Lizzie hesitates for a moment, unsure why suddenly she is nervous when she had just been talking to ( _at_ ) him.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
“I thought it might be more expedient to just call you,” he says, “I only have a few minutes between meetings, but they’re all yours. Convince me that Joss Whedon is worth hours and hours of my attention.”  
  
“No pressure or anything,” she laughs.  
  
“Think of it as a boardroom pitch. Seriously though, I only have five minutes. I can’t walk into an investor meeting talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It would be too much.”  
  
The challenge is what she needs and Lizzie launches into a five minute extemporaneous speech that would have made her debate coach proud. It is only at the end that she realizes she is pacing the length of the kitchen. Somewhere in making her argument and talking about this thing she loves, Lizzie forgot her surroundings. She forgot about being witty or clever. She just talked about something that she was passionate about and it felt  _good_.  
  
“Alright,” Darcy says when she stops long enough to take a breath, “I’ll have Reynolds procure  _Firefly_ and I’ll watch an episode a night. Can I send you thoughts and questions?  
  
“Yes,” Lizzie says. She can’t believe it was that easy. She says so.  
  
“You have obviously never been on the receiving end of one of your arguments. You can be very persuasive.”  
  
“I think all this thesis writing has wrung out my excitement,” she admits. It is the most personal thing either of them has said in weeks. “It’s feels like I’m writing about dung beetles or something. Suddenly, I hate everything I’ve written. It’s exhausting.”  
  
“You put too much pressure on yourself,” he says. Over the line she can hear someone trying to talk to him.  
  
“Pot. Kettle.”  
  
“Fair enough,” he chuckles. The voices around him get more insistent, “Listen, I’ve got to go. But try some Whedon. Get back to the things that you love. You’ll find your center there. And if you want another pair of eyes on any of it just send it along. I’d be happy to give notes. Only if you want though.”  
  
And the conversation was over as quickly as it began and Lizzie is left standing in her kitchen, slightly out of breath.  
  
She does send him the introduction because she is stuck on it and in exchange she regales him with funny stories via text to get him through a deadly boring meeting. And they only end the nearly seven hour conversation when Lizzie falls asleep with the phone in her hand.  
  
  
***

Slowly over the course of a month, without her realizing it, Lizzie becomes so busy working on her future that she stops having time to worry about it. It feels like a dozen cogs are churning in her day, spinning time so fast that Lizzie can barely keep up.

She records her 100th and final video. As her last act of the  _Lizzie Bennet Diaries_  she formally launches  _Three Sisters Studios_ and asks people to subscribe to her new channel. Many of her lovely viewers do and that helps take the sting out of the fact that the most often asked question in the comments is about Darcy.

_How is “contracting” with him?_

_When are you two going to get together? I’m getting dizzie just thinking about it._

_Where is Darcy? You keep talking about him? We want to see Darcy!_

It makes Lizzie wants to shake the Internet. She is launching her own company and all people want to talk about is her lacking love life?

The one person who seems more interested in her company launch is Darcy. He sends her flowers the day she posts her final video. They are yellow roses, which Jane is quick to point out are a sign for friendship.

“What does the card say?” Lydia eyes the flowers when Lizzie sets them on the center of the kitchen table.

“ _Congratulations on your new venture. We’re so excited to see what comes next. Sincerely, the Domino team.”_

“So they’re not from him. They’re from his company.”

“Yeah.”

“Weird,” she shrugs.

“Yeah.”

  
***

  
What is stranger is that Fitz and Gigi fly down to Longbourne for Lizzie’s graduation, but Darcy does not.  
  
She had no expectation that any of them would come, but she really never expected Fitz and Gigi. Since she left Pemberley they had been circumspect at best. Oh, she’s exchanged a few emails with Gigi and a handful of tweets with Fitz, but Darcy has been her tether to that world. He was part of her every day. So it takes her by surprise when Gigi emails to ask if they can come. Bing already said they could stay at Netherfield.  
  
Really it is foolish, but a tiny, private part of Lizzie believed he might surprise her. When she looks out over the crowd, spots Lydia waving like a maniac, and doesn’t see Darcy squeezed between Gigi and Fitz a bit if her wrenches. She is ashamed by her own disappointment. It’s just in the past month he has become one of her staunchest supporters. All of the emails, texts, and tweets had felt significant when piled up together. Lizzie doesn’t know what she thought they might mean, but now they feel empty.

“William is sorry he couldn’t be here,” Gigi says later at the dinner party Mrs. Bennet throws, “but he couldn’t get away.”

“I know how busy he is,” Lizzie sips her wine, “he missed the last Domino team meeting. He always Skypes in. Even from the road.”

“Oh, I barely even see him any more,” Gigi sighs dramatically, “Mrs. Trusk says if he wasn’t eating the meals she leaves in the fridge for him she wouldn’t even believe he was still alive.”

The conversation delves into Gigi’s preparations for her move to Sanditon, but Lizzie can’t help wonder what is keeping Darcy so busy that his sister and housekeeper don’t see him. Lizzie feels like she sees him constantly. She hopes her cheeks don’t burn at the thought of him and is glad when Lydia calls Gigi over to hear something Mary just said.

Later, there is cake and gifts. Her parents, sisters, and Charlotte chip in and buy Lizzie a new desktop computer. It is sleek and silver and powerful. It’ll be perfect for her work once she gets a space that isn’t the Bennet kitchen table. From Bing, Lizzie receives the latest version of her favorite video editing software and even Caroline sends something. It is a designer laptop case masking as a purse.

 _Because even work should be beautiful,_ the note reads and Lizzie understands it to be a peace offering.

From Fitz, Lizzie receives an ultra light, travel sized tripod, “So you can record your videos from where ever,” he says, “I was going to get you a collapsable bench too but they were out.”  
  
Everyone is still laughing when Gigi pushes the last present across the table. The card says it is from her and Darcy. Inside is a beautiful pair of cognac leather pumps. Jane gasps when she sees the brand and Lydia whistles, “Hot damn. That’s a haul.”

“Every female CEO needs a kick ass pair of heels,” Gigi explains. “Besides, those hills in San Francisco really are unforgiving. I thought you might like to wear them when you come next week to oversee shooting.”

“Thank you,” Lizzie stammers. She’s never been a shoe person, but even she can’t help but run her fingers over the buttery leather and marvel at how they fit her feet when she walks across the kitchen. They aren’t flashy like something Lydia might own or stylish like Jane, but they are classic and beautiful. They make Lizzie feel grown-up, but not in a way that causes her to fear tripping in them. Instead, she feels tall and proud when she hears their click, clack on the tile floor. Make way world, Lizzie Bennet is coming, they seem to say.

  
“All your gifts are so nerdy,” Lydia points out as they clean up. “They’re all about work.”  
  
Jane admonishes Lydia with a look, but Lizzie owns it, “I live to work. I’m fine with that.”  
  
She almost believes it when she says it. Still, there is a part of her that looks at the beautiful items piled on the table and wonders where is she in all of it? Take away the youtube channel and the books and the plans and what do you get? Is there more to her than making videos? She has never thought too hard about what it would mean to be defined by her work. She never considered how confining it might be.  
  
She thinks of Darcy. How he has been defined by his work since he was even younger than Lydia and Gigi. She tries to imagine what that kind of pressure would do to her and the Newsie robot she met a year ago begins to make sense. It doesn’t diminish how rude and snobbish he was in the beginning, but it complicates her memories of him. She wonders what he is thinking right now and it feels personal, his absence. What scares her is how personal it feels. She doesn’t have the right to feel that way.  
  
It isn’t lost on her that for her graduation present he went in with Gigi on a pair of shoes that Gigi clearly picked out. It is confusing how eager he appeared at times to be her friend, to make time for her no matter how busy, and then how at natural moments of friendship like her graduation or thesis completion he pulls back. He is always polite, but the back-and-forth is confusing. She never knows how to explain them to Charlotte or Jane or Lydia. William Darcy is her friend. It feels like an incomplete description, but Lizzie can’t say they are anything else.  
  
But this is her night dammit and she makes herself to tweet Darcy a simple  _thank you_  for the shoes. She receives an  _Our pleasure_ … in return, but from there she forces the issue out of her mind. She is not going to be melancholy.  
  
They go out to Carter’s and she does two shots of something Lydia calls ‘Four Horsemen and Hell Follows.’  
  
“Lizzie B, do you know what’s in that?” Fitz raises an eyebrow when she knocks back the second one.  
  
“My favorite boys,” she says, “Jack Daniels, Jose Cuervo, Jim Bean, and Johnnie Walker with a bit of Everclear to keep things fun.”  
  
She pulls Lydia and Gigi onto the karaoke stage for a rousing rendition of  _Lady Marmalade_. She sees a few guys taking pictures of the three of them up there dancing. Part of her thinks of Lydia and the damage an image taken out of context can do. But the thought splinters and she shimmies as Gigi takes the mic for the French bit, “ _Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir, voulez vous coucher avec moi._ ”

Of course, Gigi’s French pronunciation would be perfect even in Karoke. She is a freaking Darcy.  _Freaking perfect_  is probably the real family motto; Darcy probably has it tattooed somewhere on his body. Not that she wants to think about his body…  
  
Afterwards, Lizzie orders herself a Long Island ice tea. She tells one of the boys who was taking pictures of their performance that its her birthday and he buys it for her. She tells him how not only is it her birthday, but she’s graduating and she’s Internet famous. He should google her. Lizzie Bennet.  
  
“Hey sis,” Lydia slides her arm around Lizzie’s waist, “come help me pick my next song.”  
  
“But I was just telling this guy,” Lizzie touches the guy’s chest, “Brad, right? You look like a Brad. I was just telling him I am a Youtube sensation.”  
  
“Alchohol makes her delusional,” Lydia laughs, “don’t listen to her. She’s no one.” And then she tugs Lizzie away, but not before Lizzie sucks down the last of her drink. Someone orders fries and makes Lizzie eat a whole plate of them.  
  
“Soak some of that liquor up,” Charlotte urges.  
  
But what they don’t realize about Lizzie is that when she is determined nothing is going to stop her. On the pretense of going to the bathroom, she sneaks to the bar and snags a margarita. She knocks it back, chewing the ice, and sucking the salt off the rim. And when the opportunity presents itself she climbs back onto the stage. She launches into an impassioned solo of  _We Are Young_ but this time she is alone up there and she can’t quite get the key. A few people boo and Lizzie feels the tears press hot in the corners of her eyes. The music is still going and she is fumbling the words and everything is about to dissolve around her - her buzz and her graduation and her sense that everything is alright - when Fitz gets his cell phone out, holding it up like a lighter, and Lydia catcalls.

  
“Sing it sister,” she shouts and it spurs Lizzie on.  
  
“Tonight we are young,” Lizzie sings. She sees Charlotte give Jane a look, but Lizzie doesn’t care. She doesn’t care what William Darcy is to her. She doesn’t care that she might fail or that she still lives at her parent’s house. The drum beat echoes in her ears and Bing starts the bar chanting her name. Lizzie grabs Gigi up on stage and spins her.  
  
“You’re drunk!” Gigi giggles.  
  
“So are you!”  
  
“Don’t tell my brother.”  
  
“Why would I tell him anything?”  
  
Lizzie conducts the room with a wave of her hand as everyone shouts the chorus. Lizzie wishes she could bottle the feeling bubbling up in her chest. She is young and beautiful and nothing is going to stop her.  
  
 ”Let’s set the world on fire. We can burn brighter than the sun.”

***  
  
In some fuzzy hour of the night, Fitz delivers Lizzie home. Gigi - sleepily from the back seat - drops a second present onto Lizzie’s lap.

“What’s this?” Lizzie looks from Fitz to Gigi.

“Darcy wanted us to give it to you,” Fitz shrugs. “But he made us promise not to give it to you in front of everyone else. Said it was something just for you.”

“Um…thank you?” Lizzie stammers. She is coming quickly down from her high at the bar.

“We’re just the messengers, right Double G?” Fitz grins into the rear view mirror, but Gigi is already fast asleep.

“Seriously, thank you Fitz,” Lizzie looks at the package in her lap, “for coming down here and being such a great friend.”

“Hey,” his voice gentles, “you know we’re not going anywhere, right? That Gigi and me are  _your_ friends. I know we pushed the you and Darcy thing hard, but that doesn’t change the fact that we really care about you.”

It’s the first time anyone has acknowledged what didn’t happen and Lizzie is afraid she’ll tear up. It’s not the missed opportunity that makes her cry, but the realization that they really truly are  _her_  friends independent of anything else.

“I know,” she tells Fitz, “and I’m so glad.”

He hugs her across the console and Lizzie gives him one last smile before clutching her gift and purse and climbing out of the car. Fitz waits until she is inside before he backs out of the drive. In the shadowy grey light, Lizzie picks her way past the ‘ _Congratulations You Did It_ ’ banner hanging over the fireplace in the den. She digs out the leftover cake her mother put in the fridge and pulls a stool up to the island. She eats the cake straight out of the container, licking buttercream icing off her fork, and stares at the package sitting in front of her on the counter.

 _William Darcy_. He is her friend and while part of her mourns what they are not it, she is grateful for him. Their connection is tenuous, but it is important. It’s all about the connections. Her father’s advice about trains trips into her brain and she nudges the package with her fork.

  
“Fine,” she says and tugs the ribbon loose. When she lifts the box lid she snorts.  
  
Lying atop delicate white tissue paper is a [Jayne hat](https://www.google.com/search?q=Jayne+hat&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=P9VsUcHuNpCy8QTFkIHwAg&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1156&bih=590). The orange, red, and yellow cap is a perfect reproduction of the cap worn by her favorite _Firefly_ character. She pulls it onto her head and picks up the white envelope underneath it with her name written in a rich blue ink. It is wax sealed. Of course, it is wax sealed. She recognizes the stationary and his neat, slanted cursive. Licking her lips, she opens the card and reads:  
  
 _Lizzie,_  
  
 _My sincerest congratulations on the completion of your graduate degree. I know it has been a long road, but you have well earned the distinction of being called a master of communications. I have always envied your natural ability to communicate. It is a rare gift in this world and never let yourself believe otherwise. I am so sorry I could not be there to celebrate with you, but know that if I could be there I would. You are my friend, Lizzie Bennet. I do not have many true friends and even fewer partners so I am so thankful that in you I have found both._  
  
 _My sister is better at giving gifts, but with this small token I hope to make you laugh and I hope to help you dream big. So the hat is to make you smile. Lord knows it is the only thing I can imagine it doing. The thing is obnoxious. Second, since you have ceased your videos, I imagine you lack a diary. The fountain pen and journal are to aid your dreams, big and small. Vocational or personal. Whatever you seek from life, I hope it takes its first breath on these pages. Someday, perhaps, you’ll let me know if it does? Then I will have the deep satisfaction of knowing I was a small part of your future._  
  
 _Your friend,  
  
William Darcy_  
  
And there it is - the delicate white fountain pen and handsome black leather notebook. Lizzie thumbs the thick paper and inhales its gorgeous scent. She hugs the journal to her chest, skims the letter again, and sighs.  
  
“Fine, William. Fine.”

***

I left my heart in San Francisco   
High on a hill, it calls to me   
To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars   
The morning fog may chill the air, I don’t care   
  
“I’ve Left My Heart in San Francisco”

***

“I really don’t get it,” Charlotte holds up the letter two days later.   
  
Lizzie sucks the straw in her iced tea and shrugs.   
  
“Maybe friend is rich guy talk for something kinky?” Lydia offers. She concentrates on licking her ice cream cone.   
  
“It’s not,” Jane mutters and then blushes, “I mean I don’t know really.”   
  
Lizzie rolls her eyes, “Bing is loaded and you guys jing. We don’t have to pretend neither is happening.”   
  
The four girls sit outside a cafe in the hot May sun. Jane and Bing fly back to New York that afternoon and Charlotte leaves for Collins & Collins tomorrow morning. Fitz and Gigi have already gone back to San Francisco and Lizzie is quite proud of how she is handling the aftermath of her graduation. Slowly she is facing the fact that she isn’t a student. She has a part-time job and she still lives at home. But she has the beginnings of a company! She’s going to San Francisco next week to oversee shooting on the first set of webisodes for their Domino series and while she is there - though she hasn’t told anyone - she has secured lunch with a potential investor.  And finally she can say without a pang in her chest that she and William Darcy are just friends. The letter and gift were one of the sweetest things anyone had ever given her, but it left no room for doubt.   
  
“I really thought he was in love with you,” Charlotte confesses, “I thought he was just shy.”   
  
“Do you want me to ask Bing?” Jane offers.   
  
“No!” Lizzie sits up. She holds a finger in front of Jane’s face, “This is off limits for pillow talk. I’m invoking the sister-super-secret-stipulation.”   
  
“Oh,” Lydia’s eyes are round, “this just got serious.”   
  
“Lizzie, you deserve clarity,” Charlotte says.  
  
“He’s been clear. How is that letter anything but clear?”   
  
“I think it was the opposite of clear,” Jane holds up her hands, “I mean he gave you a diary.”   
  
“And didn’t come down for my graduation,” Lizzie counters.   
  
“And sent you flowers when you launched your channel,” Charlotte interjects.  
  
“Technically they were from his company.”   
  
“Are we sure he’s not gay?” This is from Lydia.   
  
There is a pause and each girl looks at the other.   
  
“He confessed to being in love with her,” Jane says, “and then was humiliated on the Internet infront of tens of thousands of people. And then she showed up at his company and he asks her out again and…”   
  
“I happened,” Lydia supplies.   
  
“Wickham happened,” Jane corrects, “and now they’re business partners and Lizzie is technically his competition.”   
  
“Your point is…?” Charlotte looks confused.  
  
Jane frowns, “It’s confusing. I don’t know what to think.”  
  
Lizzie picks up the letter and stuffs it back into her purse. She sucks on the straw to her tea and shrugs, “I’m not confused. We’re friends. As far as I’m concerned William Darcy is as clear as glass.”  
  
Lizzie is so busy looking smug at her best friend and older sister, she misses Lydia twisting uncomfortably in her seat.  
  
***  
  
“Now that the board has approved, I don’t get why this has to be a secret,” Lydia hisses over the phone to Darcy later that night.  
  
He pinches the bridge of his nose and slumps in his chair. In the kitchen, Mrs. Trusk washes dishes.  
  
“Because it’s not that simple,” he says, “and your trust was the one thing I asked.”  
  
“But why can’t Lizzie and my family know?”  
  
“I have a plan.”  
  
From the kitchen, Mrs. Trusk snorts and over the phone Lydia sighs dramatically.  
  
“I get you have some master plan to make amends.”  
  
“Do the honorable thing,” Darcy mutters.  
  
“Same thing.”  
  
But it isn’t. Sometime in the past month Darcy’s plan to make amends has morphed into some kind of personal reclamation project. This isn’t just about Lizzie Bennet anymore. For him, it is deeply personal.Lydia doesn’t care about the distinction though. For her, he is just the insufferable fool who is asking her to keep things from her sisters when she is trying to do the opposite. What she doesn’t realize is that telling Lizzie isn’t the issue.   
  
“The board approved the plan,” he says, “but not you. Lydia, I am sorry.”   
  
It is the same thing he said to her the night he met her and Mary at Carter’s. After he left Lizzie at the Longbourne station he didn’t get back on the train. He rented a car and met Lydia. Over greasy onion rings and Mary’s unnerving stare, he explained to Lydia his mistake. When he bought Novelty Exposures he hadn’t considered that he was buying the rights to something he never had a right to in the first place. He slid the memory card across the table.  
  
 _“It’s the only copy,” he said, “you can do whatever you want with it. Though I suggest you destroy it.”  
  
Lydia had just stared at the little black chip. She turned it over in her fingers and Darcy recognized the haunted look on her face. He’d seen that look on Gigi’s face for months. And then in one of his life’s more surprising moments, Lydia passed it back to him.  
  
“I don’t want it.”  
  
“You don’t?”  
  
“I want the company.”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“Novelty Exposures. I want some say in what happens to it.”  
  
“Nothing is going to happen to it,” Darcy blinked, “I’m going to liquidate its assets and dissolve it. I have no use for a porn company.”  
  
“Adult entertainment,” Mary muttered.  
  
“I have no use for an adult entertainment company,” he hissed.  
  
Lydia leaned over the table and got low into Darcy’s space, “What happened to me happened partially because I didn’t have anyone telling me that who I am is good enough. I want to do something about that and the only thing I can think of is to make videos.”  
  
He hesitated, “Have you talked to Lizzie about this?”  
  
“Lizzie’s answer for everything is more school. She thinks I need to get some boring degree so I can have some boring job and security, but I know what I want to do. This is my choice. I want to do this.” Lydia said, “I’m not like you and Lizzie. I don’t write business plans or get investors. But I have ideas. Good ones.”  
  
“They’re pretty good,” Mary echoed.  
  
“They’re fucking brillant,” Lydia said, “And I want to use Novelty Exposures to make them happen.”  
  
“I am not helping you make pornographic films,” Darcy sputtered.  
  
“Ugh, how can you be so stupid?” Lydia rolled her eyes. “I want to take the production and distribution resources of Novelty Exposures to make videos that talk about things girls actually need to hear. And I don’t want them to be some lame after school special. I have good ideas.”  
  
And she did. Darcy listened while Lydia pitched her ideas. A series in which girls got to talk directly with their role models. A health channel with real conversations about women’s health. A series on beauty that balanced looking awesome and taking care of yourself. Conversations about friendship and depression and the wage disparity women face and the oppression of girls around the world. Keep it real. Keep it smart. Keep it funny.  
  
“It’d be like a party,” Lydia said, “but a cool one.”  
  
And Darcy could see the possibilities in such an endeavor. He could see pitching it as a campaign to counter traditional media portrayal of women. He could think of half a dozen brands who might be interested in cross platform promotion. It coalesced in front of him: give a voice to young women when society so often spoke for them. He recalled Gigi, curled up on the couch for months after Wickham, and him feeling totally helpless to help her. A web series would not have solved her problems, but it felt like it would make a difference. It could make the difference for somebody.  
  
“We’d need a business plan,” Darcy said, “I may be CEO, but to launch an campaign like this would require board approval. We’d need time.”  
  
“What kind of time?”  
  
“Our quarterly board meeting is five weeks from now,” he checked his calendar, “I think we can get something done by then. May 26th.”  
  
“That’s Lizzie’s graduation weekend,” Lydia pointed out.  
  
He smoothed his tie and sighed, “I know.”  
  
Lydia drummed her fingers on the table, “So you’ll help me?”  
  
“Yes,” he said, “but once we get the business structure in place you’re going to need a writer. Lizzie is the obvious person. Promise me we will bring her in on this once the plans are set.”  
  
Lydia chewed on her bottom lip and looked at Mary. Mary nodded and Lydia did too, “Of course. But not until its begun. I don’t want her to try to talk you or me out of it.”  
  
“You’ve got trust me,” Darcy said, “I don’t want to keep things from your sister, but I think she’ll be more receptive if we present it to her as a unified whole. It’ll seem like less of a risk.”  
  
“It’s not her choice to make,” Lydia said.  
  
“But your relationship with your sister is important to you,” Darcy reminded her, “and she is important to me.” _  
  
Lydia had looked at him strangely then as if assessing him, but she had agreed. She agreed to follow Darcy’s lead on this and for weeks now they’d been trading emails back and forth. He had to convince her to start small. A website and a Youtube channel. Build an audience. You don’t conquer the world overnight, he told her. And you don’t change the world by playing it safe, she countered. Their partnership wasn’t like the one he had with Lizzie. They were not equals. Sometimes Darcy felt his patience stretch to a breaking point. Other times he simply shook his head when Lydia saw a solution to a problem he’d spent all day trying to figure out. But it worked. In a strange way, they worked well together.   
  
That is until Lizzie’s graduation. He’d hated to miss it, but he told himself he would make it up to Lizzie. The board approved the plan with one exception. They did not approve of Lydia. She was young. Untested. Unreliable. Not every part of Darcy’s pitch included Lydia be in front of the camera, but still they were unsure including her on the project was a good idea at all.   
  
“Lydia, I am sorry,” he finds himself saying again.  
  
Her voice is small, “So that’s it. All this work for nothing.”  
  
“No,” Darcy leans over the dining table. Mrs. Trusk sets a beer next to his elbow. He swallows some and talks fast,  ”No. It’s not over. I convinced the board that this campaign is dead without you. I pitched you come and intern for us over the summer. Fitz already said he and Brandon would love to have you stay in their guest room. It’ll give you a chance to work behind the scenes, gain some experience, and meet some of these guys. They’ll get to know you and we can pitch the campaign again to them in the fall. In the meantime, you and I will continue to work on the business plan. We can make a few demo videos. This is only over if you want it to be.”  
  
“I’m supposed to take classes this summer.”  
  
“Lydia, it’s up to you. Your choice. That’s how you wanted it.”  
  
There is a pause and Darcy feels his stomach clench. He wants this. He believes in this. Somewhere in the ensuing weeks the success of this project feels like his own success.  
  
And then he hears Lydia laugh, “Come on Dar-face. What do you think I was going to say? Of course I’ll come. No brainer.”  
  
He exhales.  _This_  - he thinks -  _is what children were going to do to him someday._  Give him an ulcer.  
  
“Alright,” he says, “now the hard part.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“We’ve got to tell your sister.”  
  
  
***  
  
“I’m going to kill him,” Lizzie whips a shirt into her suitcase.  
  
“For what exactly?” Charlotte’s tone is incredulous through the speaker phone.  
  
“I’m going to kill both of them.”  
  
“Lizzie, I’m not sure why you are mad. This sounds like a great opportunity for Lydia.”  
  
“Lydia needs to be at home. Healing. She needs to finish school and she needs to not get it in her head that she has to save every girl out there.”  
  
“What happened to letting your baby sister make her own choices?”  
  
Lizzie yanks another dress off a hanger and throws it into her suitcase. It buries the pair of cognac pumps Gigi got her for graduation.  
  
“Who do the two of them think they are anyways? Since when did William Darcy and Lydia Bennet have anything in common?” she snorts.  
  
“Are you sure you’re not just jealous?” Charlotte asks.  
  
Lizzie stuffs more clothes: pajamas, sweater, and a rain jacket into her suitcase. “No. I’m not jealous,” she hisses, “I’m pissed because they lied to me. For weeks.”  
  
“And it has nothing to do with the fact that if Lydia leaves you’ll be the last one stuck at home?”  
  
Lizzie covers her eyes. She bites back the tears and the ridiculous embarrassment she feels. Why should she be embarrassed? She is supposed to be excited about her potential investor meeting. She is supposed to be the one working in digital media. Creating content. Save the world. Change the culture. When Lydia told her about the move she kept talking about how important it was to be bold.  
  
“I’ve never played it safe, Lizzie,” she said, “and I don’t want to start because George Wickham used me.”  
  
Lizzie picks up the diary William gave her. She can hear Charlotte’s breath on the other end of the line. She flips through the first few pages, filled with her ideas and things she’s never told anyone. She bites her lip. Her videos had forced her to live out loud. They had forced her to put herself out there. Now that they’re over she needs to learn to do it on her own. Really, the decision is so stupidly simple that once Lizzie makes it she can’t believe it took her as long as it did.  
  
“Charlotte, do you think I can crash on your futon?”  
  
“I thought Pemberley was putting you up when you’re in San Francisco this week?”  
  
“They are,” Lizzie drops the diary onto her bed and heads back to her closet. She pulls out a second suitcase, “But for the week after I’m going to need a place to sleep while I look for a sublet.”  
  
“Lizzie, what are you doing?”  
  
“I’m moving to San Francisco. Apparently that is where you go to build a media empire.”  
  
***  
  
My love waits there in San Francisco   
Above the blue and windy sea   
When I come home to you, San Francisco   
Your golden sun will shine for me  
  
“I’ve Left My Heart in San Francisco”

**Author's Note:**

> "Why aren't they smushing faces already? These two idiots!" 
> 
> There will be smushing faces in the next part. I promise.


End file.
